The Shanghai Commute

The Majesty That is Vibram Five Fingers

admin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 03:23:55 +0000

I had thought that I was completely sold on the Vibram Five Fingers (sprint model) after playing in an entire Ultimate Frisbee tournament, two days of fierce competition, the day after my parents had brought them to Shanghai for me. The grass felt amazing under my feet, a feeling that I have never had in a city that generally forbids walking on grass, let alone barefoot. I had been wearing Nike Free’s for about six months prior and ran two tough marathons, one being the Great Wall marathon, in them, so my feet were strong and used to the minimalist style shoe. The thing that really astounded me, from the tournament was that the grip I got from the Five Fingers was BETTER than what I have experienced while wearing cleats. Even more though is that when cleats stick, ACL’s get torn. With the Five Fingers I could take off, change directions with a new found quickness and agility because of the confidence that comes with the freedom to PIVOT.

As I said before, I had thought that I was sold on the Vibram’s during that tournament, until today when I got out for my first full-on run on the streets of Shanghai, and I was blown away, again.

I ran for nearly two hours and would have continued, but it was starting to get late. Immediately when I stepped onto the concrete I had the sensation that I was truly feeling the city for the first time. There was a new connection that was formed between my senses and the world around me. The amount of proprioception that my body/brain was receiving was unlike anything I have ever experienced. Throughout the run I kept thinking about the benefits ADHD sufferers could gain from running barefoot (or nearly barefoot) or just wearing the Five Fingers to school, work, around the house… After the run I have just been on I have more focus to write than I have had in months, now this could be because of a few factors, but definitely the greatest contributing factor are my new feet.

Yours in running

Surreal Photo Oppourtunity

admin — Tue, 04 May 2010 05:41:05 +0000

Last Sunday I had some of my photography displayed in a charity photo exhibition and ended up selling four pieces. Liz and I had gone out to eat at Mesa Manifesto to properly send off a friend who had been staying in Shanghai for a couple of weeks, spreading the sounds of Africa throughout the music community here. Another friend of ours, Shelly, was telling us about a function she was putting on at Mesa, a couple of weeks later, where photographers could sell their work and a portion of the proceeds would go towards the IDP Education Fund which helps sponsor children in Kenya to pay for their high school education.

I asked if she needed anymore pictures and surprisingly she said “Yeah, what do you got? The theme is ‘Surreal World” What do I have? Now I had to figure some things out. First of all, what does a ‘Surreal World’ photo look like. I told her I would go through the pictures I had, see if anything fit, and give it to her the next day.

That night, sitting in the den while Liz painted, I found a few shots that I liked and inspired, probably by the oil paint fumes in the room, put them through some different filters to get what turned out to be some nice effects. Again I was quite surprised when Shelly said she liked them and they would go great with the theme (I still wasn’t quite sure what the them was).

Petrus, Liz, and I walked in to the show on Sunday and I was taken aback. It was set up swanky, with a live jazz band, South African wine and a plethora (I really love that word) of framed photographs displayed throughout the room. Some of the pictures were really quite spectacular. There was a mix of professional photographers and amateurs exhibiting, but everything looked great.

It was a ‘Surreal’ experience for me to have my pictures blown up to a large scale and watch as people walked by were intrigued by what I had put forth. And, a few of my pictures even sold.

This will be an event that will encourage me to continue taking pictures and printing more of my pieces.

Run Far in a Distant Land

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:29:29 +0000

I have decided to take “The Commute” on different kind of journey. This summer Liz, Petrus, and I will travel to Mongolia so that we can stay in a “Ger” or “Yurt” for two weeks. We will be staying in Hovsgol National Park, which surrounds Lake Hovsgol in Northern Mongolia, just over the Russian border from Lake Baikal. In the the middle of this trip our Kiwi friend Simon and I will be running in what is called “The World’s Most Beautiful Ultramarthon”. This is the Mongolian Sunrise to Sunset 100km race. http://www.ultramongolia.com/

I’ve always been a runner but have never really had a real goal to work towards. Yes I know this is a pretty big goal to start off with but I can justify it, at least to myself, and that’s all that matters anyway. I think I have always avoided running a regular length marathon because I thought anyone can push, crawl and trudge through a marathon. What an Ultramarathon does is truly test the limits of what my body and mind can do. It requires a finess level that a very small portion of the world will achieve and I want to be a part of that very small percentage. I think running this distance could be cathartic, life changing.

I plan on putting up my training schedule as soon as I can figure out how to do it on Wordpress.

Yours in Running,

Tim

“Hello Everybody”

admin — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 12:05:48 +0000

We traveled down to Moganshan for a couple of days during Chinese New Year. Petrus had a blast and wore Karl’s helmet nearly the entire time.

The smiles that you see in Double Mint commercials

admin — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:38:27 +0000

I was returning home from Starbucks today enjoying the beautiful Shanghai afternoon, which seem to be aplenty lately, and witnessed an occurance that made me realize why China is doing better than the rest of the world (Okay, so this might not be true, but lets just let it ride for now). The sun was shining brightly and picturesquely being filtered through the leaves of the oak trees that line the roads of the French concession. I looked up to see a fairly common sight on the Shanghai sidewalks, that of two youths in their late teens playing badminton. There is no net. There is no court. Just two raquets, a birdie, and wild imagination. What was intruging about this particular couple was the total and utter looks of elation on their faces. They had found nirvana here on Earth. I thought to myself, ‘They are just hitting a piece of cork with feathers attached to it, back and forth right?’

I knew then that the Chinese must be so much more socially and mentally advanced than us that there was no real questioning their greatness.

Shades of Gray

admin — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 10:54:12 +0000

I woke up this morning and thought, as I’m sure we all do on a regular occasion, I would just love to be completely and utterly surronded by gray. No overcast, pfft, I want all-around-cast. It really gets your mind in the right place to start the day when you’re still on the bridge and can’t see the massive pylons that hold the mainstay of the bridge. I’m pretty sure that a nail polish factory exploded in Pudong this morning spreading toxic fumes throughout the land. Don’t worry this will only affect us for the next 3 million years. GOOOOOOD MORNING SHANGHAI

Bula!

admin — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 05:02:16 +0000

The Shanghai commute has extended its travel time to about 19 hours each way. We, Liz, Petrus, and I, just got back from Fiji where we stayed for an entire month. It was a trip unlike I’ve ever taken before for two reasons.

One, we stayed in one place for a month. There was no driving from place to place, meeting up with friends and family, which is great but can be exhausting. It was a period of pure relaxation (as much as can be had with a two year old who’s just beginning potty training and coming down with a severe case of the screams). We set ourselves up for a cruisey, as Liz says, time. This was such a difference Shanghai and anything we’ve ever done that it took us about a week and a half to really let ourselves believe that peace, tranquillity, and rest were actually possible.

Second, It’s Fiji! It’s a tropical paradise. We stayed on the Island of Venua Levu, in Savu Savu. When we were on the main island, before we flew to Savu Savu, the locals would ask where we were headed and every time we replyed they would say “Oh, beautiful. It’s paradise.” We rented a cottage for the month right on Savu Savu bay. We could swim, snorkel, kyak right from our front steps.

We’re not rich, not by any standards, but we pulled of a life of luxury for a month in Fiji. In my wildest dreams I never thought I would travel to Fiji let alone live there for a short period of time. A lot of people kept saying to us, “I can’t belive you’re staying in Fiji for a month. I could never afford that.” Then they go and spend $2000 on flights to the states and another $2000 while they’re there. It wasn’t that hard to do and we had an amazing time.

Jammed up like a good English Muffin

admin — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:38:06 +0000

What a strange existence I live here in Shanghai. Its six o’clock on a monday night I’m moving at a snails pace (I only use that phrase because the truck next to us is leaving a trail of something that to look at makes the stomach turn), there are approximately 200000 people in the a mile radius of me and I know none of them. I don’t even know the guy who driving me home. Who is this guy. What does he do all day that he has the time to drive me for two hours on a monday night.
The road is slam packed tonight and it looks like I’ll be getting home late. When I was in college I lived an hour and a half from my parents house in Haslett, and I rarely went home since it was such a long trip. Now I spend that much time, at least going to work one way.
Its a stream of communist blue trucks, minibuses, like the one I’m in, and the occasional black Audi that seem to be THE car to have in China. I liked the phrase I heard recently about Chinese drivers. “China is a country of teenage drivers”. Ten years ago their were one tenth of the cars on the road as their are today and all those new cars means new drivers. Cars have become accessible to the majority of people for the first time in fairly recent years. These people haven’t been driving since they were sixteen, they started driving when they were forty-five. On the way to school today we almost created two accidents and were nearly run off the elevated highway when a massive travel bus decided it wanted to be in our lane for no apparent reason. Ahead of us I watched another bus swerve in and out a lane like it had the suspension of a sports car. The whole thing nearly toppled.
If you saw this on the highways of Indiana or Illinois (maybe not Florida) you would some sort of reaction, maybe even to take action and call the police, but in the strange existence of Shanghai this is commonplace.

It’s about the people that surround you

admin — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:59:53 +0000

We’ve been talking just now about our friends that are overseas (home) and their importance to us. We travel around the world and meet people all the time, but most are transient. If we do keep in contact it’s jovial and enthusiastic, but we haven’t necessarily had enough time together to truly be intertwined in eachothers hearts as some of those who have been with us for years and years and years. As an expat you get used to the fact the friends, that you spend day after day with, at the end of the year are moving on to another adventure. Apart from your partner and children not a lot else is permenant if you have the desire to trounce around the world. I had a thought just now of talking with those people that you never lose touch with that share the same ideas as you and can be considered at most perfect of levels to be a part of your family, and letting them know that if it is possible, we want to share the amazing experiences of living abroad with them. I don’t want to just have a conversation saying “I wish you could be here.” I want to say “How do we get you here?” or “How do I get there?”

Time Tested Turtle Tale that Truth is Told Through

admin — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:40:57 +0000

Last week I took my son out for a walk in his stroller down to the aquarium street near our house. To explain, this is not a road fully encased in glass with bubbling deep-sea diver statues hanging around, but an alley that has a plethora of stores that all sell the same things, aquariums. There are other streets around Shanghai that have themes. There’s the music area that sells instruments, sheet music, amps. I’ve seen an entire square block that every store sold toilets, all different shapes and sizes. The best is the row of about twenty-five, 7-11 sized stores that cater wholly to hair and nail care. If you every need to buy 3000 hair driers and 5000 sets of press-on nails, you will not walk away unsatisfied.
Anyway this particular area that we, Petrus and I, were headed has about 15 to 20 stores that all sell aquariums, filters, fish, little plastic bridges to go in the tanks, as well as the animals that reside there. We had purchased two turtles about a week before for the US equivalent of a dollar and a half and a nice 30 gallon or so tank for about 25 dollars. Petrus and I headed down there because we noticed that the turtles water was getting quite cold and we needed to get a heating pad for them to sprawl out on.
I know so far it doesn’t seem this way but, this story really has nothing to do with turtles, but everything to do with the ever-surprising nature of China and the goodness of people when you don’t expect it. I also noticed that I’ve had the need to use a lot of hyphenated words in this story. Hmm?
On the way home from obtaining our heating device we stopped at Starbucks to keep the ever-looming (another one) caffeine dragon at bay, I mean, enjoy a nice cup of Joe. We got our beverages to go and headed out to walk the one block trek home. When we got outside it had started raining, not too hard, but enough to get us wet, and cold. After we walked about a hundred yards away from the coffee shop a young man of about twenty sidled up to me and offered to hold his umbrella over Petrus in his push-chair. In fairly good English, he asked where we were going. I pointed across the street to our building, he just nodded in agreement. He walked with us all the way up to our apartment door, standing out in traffic, making sure it was safe for us to cross, shielding Petrus from the rain, and lifting Bubba and his stroller up the five steps to the entrance. I thanked him graciously as he shook his head nonchalantly and said “No Problem”, then turned and went on his way.
Thank you Sir for bolstering my faith in humanity. So many times I get rammed into, pushed out of line, stared at for not just a little bit too long, but all it takes is that one person to justify to you why you live in this city of twenty-some million, and make you appreciate kindness.